Experts: Taiwan's new visa-free travel a boon to Southern California

Joyce Tsai, 52, said she was resigned to the fact that getting her 82-year-old mother from Taiwan to visit her would never happen. Such a reunion was forever bound up in red tape.

"She would have to go up to Taipei to get a visa. She would have to take a two-hour train ride each way," explained Tsai, who lives in Walnut, an Asian ethnoburb in the east San Gabriel Valley where eight of the top 10 cities in the United States with the highest percentage of Chinese Americans are located.

Indeed, Taiwanese tourists used to need visas to travel to America and that meant in-person meetings at the American Institute in Taiwan - a single bureaucratic office known as the AIT overwhelmed with petitions for travel.

If an appointment is missed, it could take weeks or months to reschedule, stranding Taiwanese tourists on the bureaucratic tarmac.

Last fall, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did something governments rarely do. It cut the red tape separating Tsai and her mom, paving the way for visa-less travel by Taiwanese tourists to the United States.

Tsai, who has just returned from Taiwan, said she's hoping her family and friends will visit her in Walnut this summer now that they don't have to take a four-hour trip by train just to get permission to leave the country. "Now they don't have to plan. They can just come," she said.

On Nov. 1, the island nation of 23.3 million people became the 37th country joining the U.S. Visa Waiver Program, a privilege enjoyed by only a few Asian countries: Japan, South Korea, San Marino and Singapore. For the next two years, Taiwanese citizens can travel to American shores with just a passport, as long as they stay 90 days or less.

Although Taiwan's population is small, business leaders and politicians predict a large impact on Taiwanese and Chinese families living in the U.S. looking to reunite with relatives, especially in the San Gabriel Valley region from Monterey Park to Rowland Heights dubbed "Little Taipei." But the impact also will lift all boats on the river of economic opportunity known as tourism and hospitality.

Travelers arrive at LAX International Terminal Wednesday, February 28, 2013 where EVA Airlines has daily flights from Taipei. (SGVN/Staff Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz)

L.A. is big winner

"This will boost the economy here in the United States and right here in the east San Gabriel Valley," said Rep. Ed Royce, R-Brea, a 20-year Orange County congressman who won re-election in November in a brand new district that includes ethnically Asian enclaves of Diamond Bar, Walnut, Rowland Heights and Hacienda Heights.

Royce pushed for the program in Congress for several years and was part of a congressional delegation to Taiwan last year. He touted the program as part of his re-election campaign, particularly among Chinese-American voters and within the politically-charged Taiwanese community.

Last year, about 243,000 people visited from Taiwan. Royce predicts that number will grow to 600,000 this year and perhaps go even higher in 2014.

The Taipei Economic & Cultural Office in Los Angeles predicts a wave of Taiwanese tourists cresting in Southern California. In fact, it has already started counting 6,000 more tourists in November alone and many more visiting for Chinese New Year in February.

"I've heard from travel agents in Taiwan," said Chung Cheng Kung, director general of TECO. "They expect at least 30 percent more tourists will come from Taiwan to the United States. And their first choice will be the state of California."

Cheng Kung said Taiwanese tourists' favorite Southern California destinations include Disneyland, Universal Studios Hollywood and Sea World. As for shopping, they prefer to hit the malls, especially The Grove, The Americana at Brand, Westfield Santa Anita Mall in Arcadia and South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. Also on the list are such cultural attractions as the Huntington Library and Gardens in San Marino, Hollywood's TCL Chinese Theatres, the Griffith Observatory and Santa Monica. In Hacienda Heights, tourists come by the bus loads to the Hsi Lai Temple, the second largest Buddhist temple and monastery in the western hemisphere.

"The tourists who come here from Taiwan tend to be high spenders," Royce said. "The spend an enormous amount of money."

A foreign tourist in the U.S. typically spends between $4,000 and $5,000 per visit, Royce said. Who's counting? U.S. retail business interests.

"The big winner is Los Angeles. L.A. is No. 1 for tourists spending money in the U.S. It edged out New York and Miami. That is significant," Royce said.

But it's not just brand-name boutiques that will suck in the yuan or what's officially called the New Taiwan dollar.

Walnut Mayor Mary Su, herself Taiwanese-American, says many visitors spread the wealth in authentic Taiwanese restaurants located along Valley Boulevard in Alhambra and San Gabriel, on Las Tunas Drive in Temple City, and in popular Asian-themed strip malls such as Diamond Plaza in Rowland Heights off the 60 Freeway.

"I was recently at the TJMaxx (in Walnut) and there were people there from Taiwan. They needed to buy a gift for someone back home," Su said.

"So we will all benefit."

Wilson Wang, president of the Taiwan Hotel and Motel Association of Southern California, at the Holiday Inn in Diamond Bar on Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. (SGVN/Staff photo by Watchara Phomicinda)

Hotels gearing up

Hotels, restaurants and airlines that cater to Chinese and Taiwanese tourists are adding seats and hiring extra workers to handle the onslaught.

Jeannette Yuan works at Diamond Holiday, one of about seven or eight travel agencies booking group tours for mostly Asian immigrants in Rowland Heights and Industry.

Yuan said most of her clients are either from Taiwan or Hong Kong. "Some are immigrants already living in the United States who go on tours," she said.

On a recent Wednesday, she was busy arranging tours to Northern California, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas and sites in Southern California. Her company's tour buses pick up at many hotels in the San Gabriel Valley, she said, including the San Gabriel Hilton.

Other tour groups have arranged more creative tours, including a tour called the "Support Jeremy Lin" tour, based on the popularity of the NBA basketball star Jeremy Lin who is of Taiwanese descent. Another tour, according to an article in the January edition of Taiwan Panorama, takes tourists to Las Vegas and is roughly translated as the "break the bank" tour.

The Taiwanese Visa Waiver Program will add to the already growing tourism and hospitality industries, said Wilson Wang, president of the Taiwan Hotel and Motel Association of Southern California.

"We definitely do see an influx. The Taiwan Visa Waiver program has increased the visits from Taiwan to here," said Wang. His group includes 400 members, owners of hotels from Beverly Hills to Pomona, but is located in San Gabriel adjacent to the San Gabriel Hilton, a magnet for Taiwanese tourists.

The United States experienced a 6 percent increase in hotel bookings in 2012 over 2011, but California hotel bookings were up 8 percent in revenue per available room, according to Smith's Travel Research, Wang said.

"So California outpaced the U.S. market," Wang said. "California is the front gate to the Asian world. No matter where in Asia, California will get the first impact."

The state's tourism industry also has seen a rise in tourists from mainland China, as that country industrializes and its middle class flourishes.

"The airline industry and others are both stating that they're seeing an increase in travelers from Taiwan to the United States, mainly because of the Visa Waiver Program," Wang said last week.

For example, EVA Airlines, one of the premiere air carriers taking passengers from Taiwanese cities to the U.S., recently acquired additional aircraft, Wang said. It runs two daily flights from Taipei to LAX seven days a week.

It also added a new elite class to attract business travelers.

"If there is a manufacturer or an import/exporter with a product in the U.S. and they want to attend a trade show here or in Vegas, they don't have that barrier anymore. They can come out here to look for suppliers, for high-tech items or to try to gather as much information as they can for their business," Wang said.

The Taiwanese business person has invested heavily in China. Like American companies, China is where to grow their companies, using available cheap labor and less overhead costs.

While the two countries are at odds politically, business-to-business relationships are all about making money. The currency and the business folks transfer well, too, from Taiwan to China and from Taiwan to the United States, Wang said.

In the past, congressional delegations would go to Taiwan with aerospace companies to sell weaponry. Now, they are talking trade and tourism.

"It is already in motion but there is a lot more that can be done," Wang said. "Taiwan has a lot more to offer in terms of business companies. Taiwan is a great springboard into other areas, especially China."